


The Object Lesson

by ArwenKenobi



Series: Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2013 [25]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenKenobi/pseuds/ArwenKenobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I thought I'd lost this," Sherlock mumbles as it falls open to an image of a little girl lying dead in the snow with an axe embedded in her.  "I learned to read with this."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Object Lesson

The day that Mycroft announces, actually announces like a change in a law or an invasion, that he will be clearing out Sherlock's room John springs into action. He'd been avoiding Sherlock's room for the past month, and the flat in general, but this news that Mycroft was coming in and laying to claim to things that Sherlock wouldn't want him touching gets him running. The press, of course, has been camped out for days in front of the flat but John knows how best to get in. He meets only two reporters as he scales the back wall and then lets himself in through 221C. Mrs. Hudson had given up trying to sell the flat and instead she keeps it for guests and for a second entry and exit. She has insisted John keep his keys regardless of whether he moves out or not. He manages to get them off his back, one a bit violently he is none too proud to admit, and gets in. The next day, after John has made his peace with the journalist he'd pushed off the wall, Mycroft appears and wants what John has taken. John blinks and reminds him that he been the named, the only named, beneficiary in Sherlock's will. "If I want to keep everything it's within my rights." He half expects Mycroft to turn up with men in black and take everything that John had shoved in a box and run off. Instead he's allowed to keep it and he visits it every now and again for the ensuing eighteen months. Otherwise it sits in the corner of his sitting room on a chair that John doesn't let anyone sit on.

Later, when Sherlock returns, John gives him back the box. "What's this?" Sherlock asked. His nose is still healing but the rest of his face seems okay now. John still walks on his left foot a little bit sideways but that situation is quickly righting itself. 

"Some stuff I took out of your room." 

"You already gave me back the violin and the skull." Both are back in their customary spots so the sitting room looks as if nothing has changed. There's a box of John's kitchen things from the other flat that he hasn't gotten around to putting away yet. 

"There was some other stuff," John explains. "Mycroft said he was coming to clear out your room and I just grabbed what I could. Stuff I didn't think you'd want him to have." 

Sherlock peeks in the box and sees his handwritten indices. "Mycroft told me these were taken in as evidence and Lestrade had no idea what I was talking about when I tried to get them back." 

John snorts. "Bastard probably didn't want to admit that I'd got the better of him." 

"Indeed," Sherlock agrees, approvingly. "How did you get this over the back garden wall?" 

"My secret." Sherlock doesn't even look put out as he sets the box downs and plucks out a few more odds and ends. Some clothes, some old case files, manuscript pages for that book on bees he's always claimed to want to write, and then an old battered book. "I thought I'd lost this," Sherlock mumbles as it falls open to an image of a little girl lying dead in the snow with an axe embedded in her. "I learned to read with this." 

"Not surprised," John chuckles. "I've always rather enjoyed the Tinies myself." 

Sherlock looks at him funny. "What? Surprised I enjoy a bit of literacy instruction using the deaths of children? Maybe you want me right back out again." 

"Don't you dream of it," Sherlock. "Read it for school, no doubt." 

"Actually, Harry bought it for me when I was eight or nine," John replies, haughty. "She was trying to scare me and was most put out when I went straight to the library looking for more. I've got a few upstairs in a box in my closet actually - ' _The Fatal Lozenge_ ', ' _The Listing Attic,_ '...' _The Hapless Child_ ' and I think my own copy of _'The Vinegar Works_ ' too." 

Sherlock seems stunned at John's Gorey collection while John is shocked that Sherlock hadn't found it in his raids to John's bedroom. "Really why are you so surprised? You know I've got a bit of gallows humour in me." 

"There's more?!" Sherlock gasps. 

For a moment John is absolutely stunned that Sherlock doesn't have his own box of Gorey stashed somewhere but he decides that if Sherlock of all toddlers learned to read with _The Gashlycrumb Tinies_ that perhaps Mrs. Holmes, or perhaps even Mycroft, had decided to keep the rest away from him until he was older. "I'll go get them." 

They spend the evenings reciting and laughing over their favourite bits and eating Chinese food, which Sherlock has paid for in one of his many attempts to show John that he is a changed man and is no longer a terrible human being who pretended to be dead for nearly two years. John is helping himself to his third beer of the evening when they decided to alternate reading _The Fatal Lozenge._ Sherlock reads about the Resurrectionist, which is extremely fitting, and then passes the book to him. It's been so long that John forget what the 'S' is in this story. 

"The Suicide," he starts but then Sherlock opens his mouth to say something but John silences him. "I'm fine," he assures him. "We're fine. You know that right?"

Apparently that's another thing that Sherlock hadn't known before tonight. "Are we?" 

John starts again:

" _The Suicide, as he is falling,_

Illuminated by the moon,

Regrets his act, and finds appalling 

The thought he will be dead so soon."

He passes the book back to Sherlock. Sherlock studies the page. "This is a woman, John." 

"Is it?" 

Sherlock says nothing for awhile. He just stares at the book and at John like he's trying to work up the courage to say something deeply profound. "I did find it appalling," is what finally leaves his mouth. Sherlock usually owns whatever he says, even on the rare occasion that it is stupid, so it's when Sherlock tries to take back what he's said and replace it with something better that tells John the most. 

"Sherlock," he silences and soothes. He repeats his name another two times before Sherlock finally stops. "The Tourist is next, yes?" John gestures at the book at Sherlock's eyes widen. "I was having fun and I'd like to keep having it before I go to bed. Would you be so kind?" 

Sherlock smiles and obliges. "The Tourist huddles in the station while slowly night gives way to dawn..."

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 25: Edward Gorey


End file.
